Each year, we at the Center for Global Development hold an event which brings together development leaders from official bilateral and multilateral development agencies and institutions from around the world. This event is an opportunity for leaders to come together and discuss the challenges they are facing, the issues on their mind, and how they see their role changing. We offer the opportunity for them to do this not in isolation, in their own workplaces, but together.
This year, we co-hosted the fifth iteration of the Development Leaders Conference with Agence Française de Développement (AFD) in person in Paris.
Every single attendee of the conference acknowledged that they are operating in a new paradigm. While there used to be a clear understanding of what the purpose of development cooperation was: improving livelihoods, reducing poverty and dealing with global health issues, leaders must now also deal with a major geopolitical crisis and a global climate crisis.
Just ahead of the 2022 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group, I invited Rémy Rioux, Chief Executive at AFD and my co-host for this year’s DLC, to join us for this CGD podcast. Listen in as we reflect on the perfect storm facing development agencies and how they could rethink their approach—and perhaps mobilize finance in a new way—in order to weather it.
CGD blog posts reflect the views of the authors, drawing on prior research and experience in their areas of expertise.
CGD is a nonpartisan, independent organization and does not take institutional positions.
